Mercados - History Lab

Cadastre of the Ensenada

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:42 +0000

Between 1750 and 1754 all the towns in “las Castillas” were subjected to an interrogation consisting of the following 40 questions: Name of the town (question 1); jurisdiction (2); extension and limits (3); types of land (4, 5); trees (6, 7, 8 and 13); measures of surface and capacity used (9, 10); species, quantity and value of fruits (11, 12, 14 and 16); tithes and first fruits (15); mines, salt mines, mills and other “artefacts” (17); livestock (18, 19 and 20); census of population, with neighbours, labourers, solemnly poor (21, 35 and 36), census of clerics (38) and convents (39); houses and other buildings (22); goods belonging to the commons (23), sisas and arbitrios (24), expenses of the commons, such as salaries, festivals, paving, fountains (25), taxes (26 and 27); industrial and commercial activities, with the utility of the goods or services produced: taverns, inns, shops, bakeries, butchers, bridges, boats on rivers, markets and fairs (29), hospitals (30), money changers and merchants (31), shopkeepers, doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, notaries, muleteers etc. (32); masons, stonemasons, masons, stonemasons, blacksmiths, cobblers etc. (33, 34); ships (37); alienated goods (28) and the King’s own revenues (40); the answers to these questions are obtained following a previously regulated process. This panoramic view of the Kingdom is a small part of a larger survey, the so-called Cadastre of the Marquis de la Ensenada, set in motion by Royal Decree of Ferdinand VI on 10 October 1749, as a preliminary step to fiscal reform, replacing the complicated and unjust provincial revenues with a single tax, the so-called Contribution. The Single Tax was never implemented, but it has left an important volume of documentation in our archives, the General Answers are kept in various State Archives. The General Archive of Simancas holds the complete certified copy of the replies of the 13,000 localities of the Crown of Castile. Preservation reasons led to the initiation of the microfilming process. In the 1980s, the 545 books of General Answers kept in Simancas were microfilmed. The frequent consultation of these collections and the need to facilitate access made digitisation advisable, which was carried out by the Document Reproduction Service (SRDAE) from microfilm during 2004 and 2005. The result is 350,000 images of documents with very neat calligraphic handwriting, easy to read and with hardly any abbreviations; very few pages have legibility problems, such as faded inks or ink transfer from the back. These images are now available on this page.

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Market

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:26 +0000

The women were actively involved in the work as saleswomen, as well as in agricultural and livestock tasks and in the transformation of the products generated by the economy. As well as working as poultry, fish or vegetable sellers, they also occupied positions as innkeepers or bakers. The age of the women implied the development of a different activity. The laws, on the other hand, placed limits on the exercise of certain jobs according to age or marital status. This image allows us to approach history from a female perspective, as it makes women visible in areas other than the domestic sphere, carrying out professional activities.

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Revenues from the provincial revenues of the city of León in 1757

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

The provincial rentas provinciales of the hull of the city of León were a type of rentas ordinarias; taxes levied on a permanent basis on a regular basis. This means that the provincial rentas were an aggregate of previously independent rentas, such as alcabalas, tercias, millones and cientos. In the case of León, in 1757, the author computes a total collection of 491,886 reales. What was the basis for this revenue? Most of it, 47.5%, was basic foodstuffs of modern society: meat, wine and brandy. Within meat, the most heavily taxed was pork, which was the most popularly consumed. On the other hand, beef, demanded by the wealthier social groups, was more protected from taxation. By individual products, wine was the most heavily taxed, with up to 33.3% of the revenue coming from the fluid product; a sum of 163,456 reais. Other events, such as fairs and markets, also provided a large part of the revenue with 116,844 reales, or 23.8% of the total. The typology of income shows the products and marketing systems that existed in the centre of the city of León and which served to increase the income of the provincial revenues, revenues which, as a whole, accounted for almost 45% of the net income of the monarchy in the 18th century.

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